Publication Type: Session PaperReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Contrary to popular belief, discussions of morality, spiritual sensibilities, and religion are major themes in the lyrics of rap music. The current study provides an exploratory content analysis of rap lyrics in an effort to better understand the ways in which rap artists and audiences thought and think about their spirituality. Results indicate that there existed a fervent and nuanced discourse around spirituality and its various forms during the rise of rap music between the mid 1990s and early millennium.

Publication Type: Panel PaperAbstract: Sir Philip Sidney stated in his Defence of Poesie that the "chief poets both in antiquitie and excellencie" had aimed at imitating "unconceivable excellencies of God" in their poetry, using as a model the poesis of "David in his Psalmes," and that of "Salomon… in his song of songs… Ecclesiastes and Proverbes." The prayer-like and meditative Divine lyrics of the Psalms were, in early-modern England, the model for the imitation of God's word. I wish to show how John Donne's sermons used the psalms as a means of catechism and transformation of his listeners. As in Christ's refinement of sermo into Verbum, Donne's homiletic use of the Divine poesis of the Psalms wished to reveal a Divine presence within the sermon's words, and to perform the transformation of his listeners using the psalter, "canticum amorum," as a model of loving instruction, a verbal act of "making love to the Congregation."

3. FitzPatrick Sifford, Elena."Sun Gods and the Son of God: "Lords" in New Spain across Time" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the RSA Annual Meeting, Grand Hyatt, Washington, DC,, <Not Available>. 2019-09-15 <http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p526170_index.html>

Publication Type: Panel PaperAbstract: Following the conquest of Mexico in 1521, Spanish conquerors believed it their duty to bring Christianity to the New World. Images of Jesus Christ were first imported, and then created by Spanish and Native artists as part of the evangelizing efforts. Later in the post-conquest period, polychromed sculptures of the crucified Christ were popularized as a violent and visceral reminder of the sacrifice of salvation. These crucifixes, modeled with indigenous techniques and painted in the Spanish style, illustrate that both Spanish and local precedents influenced the creation and development of Christ-centered devotional images. This paper examines indigenous representations of male gods alongside early New Spanish Christ images in order to trace the development of various New World “Lords.”

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: How do swings in nativism influence immigrants' sense of citizenship and belonging? This paper addresses this question by focusing on the integration experience of Latino immigrants as their group position changes in the racial hierarchy. Drawing from two years of participant observation and drawing from nearly 300 interviews in South Carolina, the paper shows how native-born attitudes and beliefs about immigrants radically shifted from welcoming to exclusionary. The paper introduces the concept of “Nativist Shocks” to explain the forces that immigrants identified as influencing their perception that Americans no longer want them. The central argument is that immigrants interpret salient events, including changes in state policy, activist actions, and public demonstrations, as having a 'racial face'. This 'face' is based on the racial group they associate with the event and crystallizes racial antagonism for immigrants and their sense of group position. Nativist Shocks ultimately drive the unauthorized away from some new immigrant destinations and, in many cases, back to their home nations. This paper enhances linear models that show immigrant integration as a gradual, long-term and monotonic process. I show that integration can be susceptible to shocks that induce immigrants to solidify their sense of group position and race relations over a short period of time.